Home Appreciation Loan: Market and Product Analysis
Ipsos, in collaboration with Experian and Amanda Littlewood, was commissioned by the Scottish Government to carry out research to examine the potential market for, and home owners' attitudes towards, the proposed Home Appreciation Loan (HAL), an equity-based lending product to help eligible owners meet the cost of repairs. The objectives of the research were to:160
- estimate the number of homeowners in Scotland who would be unable to access commercial lending to fund repairs exceeding 1633,000
- estimate how many of these people would be eligible for a HAL product
- explore the attitudes of owners potentially eligible for a HAL product to a range of issues related to repair and maintenance, their previous experience of repairs, their experience of lending and lenders, and their views of HAL and any barriers to use.
View the full research report on the Scottish Government website.
Technical details The research used a combination of secondary analysis of existing data sources and qualitative telephone interviews with 40 householders. Estimating the size of the market for HAL involved a four-stage modelling exercise using a combination of160data held by Experian to estimate access to credit and available equity and data from the 2002 Scottish House Condition Survey to estimate the extent of disrepair. The interaction of these three models, along with the filtering of non-owners, provided an estimate of the number of households potentially eligible for HAL. The 40 householders were purposively selected because they lived in areas with the greatest probability of containing HAL-eligible households. The interviews explored their experiences of repair and maintenance to their home and their views of a HAL product.
